Among Thieves
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: When Emperor Seliph dispatches the Jungby cousins to pacify the orphaned kingdom of Verdane, Lester and Faval expect plenty of trouble. What they don't expect is an encounter with a scarred and bitter veteran of the ambush at Belhalla. Let's just say Dew the adorable thief grew up. No pairings except what went down during Gen 1.
1. Chapter 1

**Among Thieves**

I do not own_ Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Warnings: Contains drinking, swearing, and the implication that lotsa "adult" activities went down in Gen 1. All pairings discussed or implied are at least _possible_ in-game, so no Sigurd/Ayra or Noish/Alec MPREG or anything like that. That doesn't mean they're all predestined or popular pairings.

* * *

_Verdane, 779_

Lester knew he shouldn't have let Faval drag him into the underground pit that passed itself off as "the finest tavern between here and Marfa."

"In Grannvale it'd be illegal to call this 'beer,' Faval."

The swill the barmaid ladled out was likely laced with some kind of foreign drug, too. It had an acrid aftertaste and the Verdanese drunks around them were in a suspicious stupor. That did make it easier for the travelers, though; if nobody remembered them, all the better.

"Guy in the corner keeps looking at us," Faval muttered when they were midway through the first drink. He'd learned to talk without much moving his lips.

"Which one?" Lester fought off the impulse to look over his shoulder.

"Short guy with the ponytail."

Lester waited a few minutes before taking a discreet glance back at the fair-haired man with the deeply scarred cheek. From behind, the stranger in flamboyant highwayman's dress looked almost like a little kid, but his face and eyes told a different story. Lester guessed the highwayman was about the same age as Faval's father.

The highwayman had sober eyes. Lester ducked down to stare into his cup of tainted beer, hoping he hadn't looked too long at the stranger.

They only dared drink two rounds at this particular dive. Faval threw some gold on the counter, but it wasn't enough for the barmaid. Lester left his cousin to deal with the dispute while he went up into the air to ready the horses so they could get to whatever passed for an "inn" around these parts.

Lester thought he was keeping an ear tuned for unfamiliar footsteps, but even so he wasn't prepared for the sudden tight dig of fabric into his throat, much less for the whisper into his ear.

"I don't think you're here on any regular business."

"My business is in Marfa," Lester said, as calmly as he could with his shirt-collar constricting his throat. He didn't need to look to know the highwayman had gotten the jump on him.

"Hey, Les. Got a problem there?"

"Just a simple misunderstanding," Lester lied to Faval, as the highwayman relaxed his grip just enough that Lester turn his head to see his opponent's scarred face. He knew it was the other hand, the one that wasn't at his throat, that he needed to worry about.

The highwayman looked from one cousin to the other with nothing short of hatred in his dark eyes.

"What's an Isaachian and someone from the Manster District doing in these parts?"

"We're looking for work in Marfa," Lester repeated.

"Bull."

"Hey, buddy. I don't think so." Faval said it in an off-handed way, but he was already reaching for his quiver.

"Don't do it, Faval," Lester managed to say.

Drawing the Yewfelle here, in this place, would bring down more trouble than either of them could handle. But Faval went and did it anyway; Lester heard the air sing as his cousin pulled back on the shining bow and the light of the holy weapon danced on their faces.

"Briggid's boy," muttered the highwayman as he released his grip on Lester. "And you must be Lex's kid."

"What?" Lester rubbed at his neck, wondering if he'd heard correctly.

The highwayman had his blade out now, but he was in a defensive stance.

"Who sent you?"

"Who'd you think?" Faval didn't waver in his aim; he was still poised to send the Yewfelle's arrow through the highwayman.

"Grannvale's new emperor?" The highwayman let out a hoarse bark of laughter. "He's twice the fool that his father was if he thinks sending you two in here will fix anything."

The three of them held their poses for a moment- Faval ready to shoot, the highwayman with his blade raised, and Lester empty-handed and quite frankly struck by the stranger's words.

"Listen, kiddies. I'd love to talk, but I'd rather do it when you're not pointing the Yewfelle at my throat. Later."

And he slipped away into the dark. Faval's arrow passed through empty air and embedded itself in the dirt.

"Who the hell was that?" said Faval as he scowled over the missed shot. "Not many people can dodge like _that_."

"I don't know, but I think I'm glad you didn't shoot him." Lester was intrigued by the way the highwayman spoke of the prior generation's lost heroes- as though he'd known them, really. "Now, put that away and let's find a place for the night."

-x-

The place they found was shabby and stained, with one bed for the two of them to share. Emperor Seliph hadn't given them enough of a stipend that they could afford to spend freely on their lodgings... and besides, that kind of display would attract attention, which was the last thing Lester wanted after their encounter with the highwayman.

"He knew my mum," Faval said of their acquaintance. "Wonder if he was one of her pirates."

"Maybe. I wonder why he took me for one of the Dozels." Lester also wondered if Faval had deliberately taken the good side of the bed, or if there _was_ a good side. "I don't look anything like Johalva... or his brothers. Or his father, for that matter."

Lester recalled the Dozel clan without effort- all brown-haired and scowling, with a tendency to coarse, thick features. He hoped he didn't come off that way.

"No idea. I thought that Lex guy didn't have any kids."

"I'm pretty sure he didn't." Lester mulled it over a while, then added, "He could tell where each of us was raised just on how we talked. He's travelled, that's for sure."

"Gotta be a pirate," Faval said.

"Or a mercenary."

"Yeah." Faval yawned. "An Isaachian and someone from the Manster District. He got us all right and all wrong in the same moment."

"Well, a fine pair of nobles we make given you can't open your mouth without sounding like a street tough from Conote." Lester was hardly the first to make that comparison, but he felt it was probably the most accurate way of summing up how Faval, Duke of Jungby, presented himself.

"Hah. You're the one who thinks he talks like a Grannvale noble when it's dead obvious you come from the ass-end of Isaach." Faval did a fair imitation of Tirnanog's particular brogue.

"Hey, Mother tried her best with me."

"Guess she didn't have much to work with," said Faval. "All right. Good night, Your Saintly Highness of the Noble House of Edda."

"We probably shouldn't be talking about this," said Lester, mindful of the thin walls. "Good night, Faval."

-x-

"I'm starting to wonder if His Majesty didn't pick the wrong pair for this job," Lester said in the morning as he looked over their collection of maps. "How are the two of us supposed to bring law and order to Verdane when we can't even get a drink without ending up in a fight?"

"C'mon, who else was he going to send? Arthur and Tinny? That'd be funny."

Lester had to shake his head at the idea of the Velthomer-Freege siblings attempting to pacify Verdane. But really, the mission was ridiculous. Two men, tramping through a large and wild nation that hadn't really seen proper government since war broke out between Grannvale and Agustria more than twenty years before. Somehow, through either kismet or charisma, the sons of House Jungby were supposed to bring Verdane justice and the rule of law. Lester would've felt better about their prospects had the emperor given them something resembling an army.

And then they walked out of the inn to find the highwayman in his full gaudy costume, perched on the front stoop and whittling a stick.

"I've been waiting half the morning for you little dolts," he said as he glanced in their direction.

"You!" Lester didn't doubt for a second that the innocent-seeming small knife and sharpened stick could be deadly in the highwayman's hands.

"Yes, me. I figured I could might as well join you two knuckleheads before someone less compassionate than me put an end to you."

"How about you tell us who you are first, _buddy_," said Faval in the tone of voice that usually involved the Yewfelle and projectiles.

"The name's Dew."

Lester had known a few moments in his life when words alone made him flinch like a cross-punch delivered hard to the gut, and this was such a moment.

"No way," he said without even thinking. "Mother always told us you'd been killed at Belhalla."

"Heh." Dew smiled, though one corner of his mouth didn't rise very far. "I dropped to the ground when the firefight started. Rolled around in some blood then played dead and crawled away on my belly after sundown. If the rest of them had any sense, they'd have done the same, but no. They all went down defending their honor and virtue."

He spat out _honor _and _virtue_ like they tasted bitter on his tongue. Lester, who had only been able to piece together a fragmentary account of the legendary disaster, found questions spilling from his mouth.

"Did anyone else make it out of there alive? Holyn did, I know- he reached us in Isaach."

"He's still around?" A gleam of something like hope flickered across Dew's face.

"No," said Lester, and the highwayman's expression went flat again.

"I think Beowulf got away. Once Sigurd died, he knew he wasn't gonna get paid, and he wasn't in it to prove his knightly honor or holy-blooded holiness. His contract got _unexpectedly dropped_ and he was out of there." Dew shrugged. "Lex died for sure, if that's what you're asking about."

"You've got me all wrong. I'm not Lex's son. My parents are Lady Aideen and Bishop Claude."

"Aideen? You mean that?" Lester thought he saw, for the first time, genuine shock in the older man's eyes. Then the eyes narrowed back into cynical slits. "Kid, I don't know what your mum told you, but you're the spit of Lex of Dozel."

Lester didn't want to think about that right now.

"Well, what about Bishop Claude?"

"He was hurt bad. Got put on somebody's horse by one of the Chalphy knights and sent off who knows where. Never saw him again." For all his earlier claims of compassion, Dew wasn't showing much of that now. "Any other questions for me?"

"I've got none," said Faval. He'd been taking this all in without much of a reaction. Then again, Lester thought, neither of_ his_ parents had been lost at Belhalla and Faval wasn't carrying around any lifelong questions about who died there and how.

"No, I suppose not right now," Lester said after a moment's reflection. "Thanks, though. I guess it's good to know the truth."

"Well, I've got a question for you," Dew said as he turned toward Faval. "Your twin sister's still alive?"

"Patty? Yeah, she's fine. She went back to Thracia 'cause she's hoping to marry a general's son and inherit a mansion."

"Good," said Dew, and Lester thought the highwayman sounded genuinely pleased. "Always did worry about that kid."

"Why?" asked Lester.

"Came into the world feet first and she wasn't strong. All the rest of you kids were healthy little savages but it looked for a while like we were going to lose Patty." With that, he pocketed his whittling knife and shot a pointed look at the Jungbys. "Are we planning to get to Marfa any time soon, kiddies?"

-x-

"He's for real," said Faval. They'd reached an inn as dingy and sad as the previous night's and the cousins at last had a moment to themselves. "All the rest of that stuff he could've made up or taken out of other people's stories, but he wouldn't know about Patty if he wasn't really there with Mum and Sigurd. One thing I still remember Mum saying after all these years was I had to take care of Patty 'cause she'd been doing everything backwards from the day we were born."

And with that, Faval made peace with the idea of their new traveling companion. But Faval went through life with the Yewfelle in his grasp and the holy brand of Ulir's bloodline on his brow and found it easy enough to take the world in stride- at worst, he might let some punches or arrows fly, but then he'd get over it. He wasn't made for melancholia. As for Lester, he didn't understand at first why he couldn't sleep, but after Faval's third request to "Stop squirming around!" Lester decided that talking about the fate of Claude of Edda might prove helpful.

"The Chalphy knight that Dew mentioned had to be Alec, because we know the rest of Sigurd's men died with him at Belhalla. Sir Alec escaped with his wife Sylvia and their baby girl, and we know they got pretty far because Leen ended up at the orphanage in Darna."

"We don't know nothin'," said Faval. "I don't even know how _I_ got to the orphanage Patty and me ended up in, never mind how Leen got to hers."

"So the woman who served as the Eyes of Claude when he was in the Tower of Bragi might've been Sylvia. That actually makes some sense!"

"No, it doesn't," said Faval. "The Tower isn't anywhere near to Darna. It's clear on the other side of the world."

"Okay. Well maybe Sir Alec took Leen westward to Darna and Sylvia went north with my father."

"And maybe you're thinking about this way too hard," Faval replied. "The Eyes of Father Claude being Leen's mum just sounds to me like one big coincidence."

"It's not coincidence, Faval. It's destiny. Look at all the improbable things that already happened to bring about the new Crusade."

"Yeah," Faval said after thinking it over for a minute. "Okay. A lot of stuff did happen that was pretty unlikely. That still doesn't mean Leen's mum was the Eyes."

"But it feels true."

"Yeah, maybe. You want to talk coincidence? I think it's funny how everybody switched up."

"What do you mean, switched up?"

"So, the way you reckon it, Sylvia dumped her kid at an orphanage and went off with your father. Meanwhile, your mum was up in Isaach getting awfully friendly with Sir Midayle."

"Hey! You don't know anything about that-"

"And that's not even taking into account where Lex of Dozel fits into it," Faval continued. "And from what Dew said, that Beowulf guy just kind of ran off, and his wife somehow gets to Thracia and gets mixed up in some bad way with my old man while my mum is wandering around with me and Patty. And that's just _us_."

"Now you're the one reading way too much into things," said Lester. "You've really no idea what went on in Tirnanog or anywhere else."

"Exactly," said Faval. And on that note of satisfaction, the Duke of Jungby fell asleep, leaving the Duke of Edda to brood in the darkness.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

**A/N: **So the hapless "good cop/bad cop" show of Lester 'n' Faval meets up with a bitter and disillusioned Dew, and now things get messy. :)

While Leen and Corple don't necessarily know they're related, per the Alec/Sylvia lovers' conversation Leen was already born before Behalla, so survivors of Sigurd's army (specifically, Lewyn) would at least figure a green-haired dancing girl named "Leen" was likely Sylvia's daughter even if no one knew that Alec!Corple was Sylvia's son. Not that this really matters in the grand sense of the 'fic or anything else but it does go to show how little everyone does know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Among Thieves**

I do not own_ Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Same warnings as before.

* * *

_Chapter Two_

The newly-formed trio rose at daybreak, evaded the innkeeper's offer of suspect griddle cakes, and continued down the road to Marfa. Dew guided the Jungbys to a roadside stand where they bought steamed buns filled with fruit and cheese; Lester and Faval devoured their breakfast while Dew flirted with the pretty bun-seller.

"No more crapholes," Dew said once they'd stocked up on buns for the journey south. "If you're going to stick around here for any length of time, you need to learn the land. You're better off sleeping under a tree than in some lice pit like we saw last night. Now, why don't you tell me what this 'business' of yours is in Marfa?"

"The bishop of Marfa sent a petition to Emperor Seliph for aid and promised His Majesty use of Marfa as a home base in securing the homeland of the late Empress Deirdre," said Lester.

"You don't say. Have you got the petition?"

It was tucked inside Lester's coat; he pulled out the handwritten copy of the bishop's letter to the emperor and handed it to Faval who in turn passed it to Dew. Dew moved his lips silently as he looked over the petition, giving Lester the impression the highwayman needed to sound out the words before he fully understood them.

"There's no bishop in Marfa. There hasn't been a church anywhere near to Marfa in ten years. Your emperor's been had."

Lester and Faval exchanged a long look; Faval didn't seem entirely surprised and something in Lester was honestly more disappointed by the ruse than shocked by it. Not that it meant they enjoyed having it rubbed into their faces...

"Marfa's run by a pair of thugs," Dew continued. "McGwire and Canseco would sooner bash in your heads than lend you the castle. This whole thing's a trap to lure in foreigners for the killing."

"Why do that and risk war with Grannvale?"

"Because the people of Verdane have learned that Grannvale's been fighting wars on so many fronts they don't have the resources to chase down every petty murderer in the west."

"I'd think the deaths of the heads of two noble houses would count as more than petty murder," Lester protested.

"Nobody here knows who you are. Or cares." Dew handed back the fradulent letter and Lester, out of habit, carefully tucked it away once more. "You saunter into Marfa looking for friends and the best you can hope for is to be held in the dungeon for ransom."

"So if we get rid of these guys, it'll be a good thing for Verdane?"

"Maybe," Dew said with a sidelong glance at Faval. "If you off the Bash Brothers and don't stick around to keep order, something as bad or worse is gonna step in to pick up the slack. That's what happened here after Sigurd thought he'd cleaned house."

The sound of their horses' hooves in the dust filled the silence that followed this dire prediction.

"But yeah, taking 'em out might win you some friends," Dew concluded.

"Then let's do it," said Faval, changing his plans as easily as he'd once changed his allegiance.

"Fine," said Lester. "I don't like being lied to."

"Well." Dew sounded like he had a good deal more on the end of his tongue, but all he did was adjust his plumed hat against the sun as they continued towards Marfa.

-x-

"Got some friends here that can put us up for the night. Just don't say anything stupid, and if you don't know what's stupid and what isn't then don't say anything."

"He talks to us even worse than Lewyn did," said Faval as Dew conferred with said friends about their lodging. "I don't mind straight talk but this guy comes on like we just crawled out of the nursery."

"Mother always made out that Dew was irreverent but endearing," said Lester. "I guess a lot can change in twenty years."

His mother's stories about Lewyn the charming royal-blooded bard didn't really prepare Lester for dealing with the man who served as Seliph's tactical advisor, either.

"Well, also if she thought he was dead, maybe she was only telling you the good parts," said Faval. "My old man still talks about some of Sigurd's people like they were saints, and, uh, I've heard different."

"I can see Mother being diplomatic about old friends," agreed Lester.

Unpleasant or not, Dew did come through with both comfortable lodging and excellent food from their hostess. The Jungbys found themselves facing down a brightly colored dish of quails in some kind of fruit sauce, pale green beans the size of Lester's thumbnail and and a heap of lilac-tinged vegetables that resembled potatoes.

"So you grew up in Tirnanog with Seliph."

It didn't come across as cordial small talk. Dew's scarred face was set in a hard mask and his dark gray eyes seemed equally harsh. Lester decided to meet this odd interrogation with courtesy.

"Yes. Mother had an entire houseful of us there," he said, and then related a few details about his upbringing in Tirnanog and how his family stood in the present day.

"Lady Aideen, the emperor's mother-in-law. Fancy that," said Dew when Lester had finished. He spoke in a tone so arch that Lester had to wonder if Dew wasn't actually hiding a spark of sentimentality, but there wasn't much sentiment in sight as Dew turned towards Faval. "So what's your story?"

"Me and Patty ended up in the second-crappiest orphanage in Conote," Faval said around a mouthful of quail.

"What made it the _second _crappiest?" Dew sounded like he thought he'd regret even asking.

"The crappiest one brainwashed the kids into being hitmen for the Loptyr cult."

"As opposed to you, becoming a hitman for Blume voluntarily," Lester put in. Faval and Dew both ignored him.

"So how'd you end up there? What happened to Briggid?"

"Dunno," said Faval. "We just did. I have a couple of memories of Mum and I remember a few things she told me, but Patty doesn't remember a thing. All I know is, she's not dead and I've got to get this Verdane mission over and done with before Patty and I can go looking for her."

"Why's that?"

"Rules." This laconic reply encompassed a host of obligations and exhortations that neither cousin cared to explain to Dew at that moment. "War's not over until Silesse and Verdane and Agustria are free. So here we are, the Verdane Liberation Force at your service."

"And what? Once you've conquered Verdane, the two of you are tripping northward to subjugate Agustria? I'd like to see that."

"The Silessians are taking care of their own," said Lester. "The Agustrian Liberation Army is marching on Nordion at this very moment."

"Well, doesn't that bring back the memories." Dew pulled a straw from the band of his hat and proceeded to pick his teeth there at the table. "I don't really know what you're planning to save Verdane from other than itself. The Evil Empire never really made inroads here. Too many trees, too many pitfalls, no actual armies to fight or leaders to capture. It's a land of a thousand warlords. There's been pockets of Loptyr worshipers since before you kids were born, but..."

Lester waited for Dew to get to his point while Faval chomped his way through another quail.

"I don't think this is the same kind of war you've been fighting."

"We've fought all over the eastern half of Jugdral and it was never the same kind of war anywhere," replied Lester. "Isaach wasn't Northern Thracia wasn't Southern Thracia wasn't Grannvale. I think the emperor understands more than you think he does, which is why he dispatched a couple of bowmen and not a cavalry brigade."

"I'll say it like this, then. What nobody in Verdane wants to hear is, 'I'm from Grannvale and I'm here to help civilize you.' Even the dogs don't want to hear it."

"Well, maybe you can tell us this." Faval had finally cleaned his plate, which he now shoved away. "We heard that people in Verdane look to Emperor Seliph because his mum the empress came from Verdane and he's one of their own. If that's not true, we oughta pack up and go home now because if the people don't want Seliph I'm not gonna shove him down their throats."

"There are people who support Seliph," Dew said after some hesitation. "Mostly in the far west near the old capital."

"Okay. So we have a duty to protect those loyal to Emperor Seliph from thieves, brigands, warlords, bandits, and whatever other forces of lawlessness infest Verdane," said Lester.

"And we'll start by going into Marfa and cleaning house," added Faval.

"I can't believe I'm hearing all this again," Dew said around his toothpick. But Lester and Faval were regrettably used to being treated like stand-ins for members of the previous generation, and it was easier to take from some "dead" man they barely knew than it was to hear from their own parents.

-x-

Three days passed with Dew acting as their often truculent guide towards Marfa. On the middle of the third day, Dew had them halt their horses by a collection of nondescript trees.

"Storytime, kiddies." Dew waved in the direction of the verdant foilage that gave the ruined kingdom its name. "In this patch of forest, Lester's saintly mother Aideen and I collided with Sir Sigurd's rescue party back when he was a loyal servant of King What's-his-name and the rest of us were too young and stupid to know what a mess we'd fallen into."

Lester and Faval stared at the trees. Lester at least attempted to commit the scene to memory; this episode in his mother's tangled history had, after all, resulted in his own existence.

"So who all was there?" asked Faval.

"Me and Aideen. Sigurd, his sister Ethlyn and her husband, various lackeys, and the little brother of Emperor Arvis. And Lex," he added with a pointed look at Lester. "I think that was it. The fun people didn't join up until later."

"Huh," said Faval. "So, was Aunt Aideen as pretty as everyone says?"

"Faval!"

"Well, come to think of it, there were better lookin' women with Sigurd," Dew said, and he chewed on the inside of his unmarred cheek as he thought it over. "Ethlyn was real cute even if she was in love with that jackass she married. Princess Raquesis was a looker. And when Briggid showed up I think every man in camp had to agree she was the prettier twin. I guess you could say Aideen had grace. Whatever it was, she knew how to work it."

"My mum's the pretty twin, heh heh." Faval seemed delighted by this news.

"Be quiet," muttered Lester.

"Miss Tiltyu had tits so nice even Father Claude couldn't stop staring," Dew added.

"I've heard enough," said Lester, and he commanded his horse onward.

-x-

Dew did prove correct that camping was the preferable option to staying in dilapidated public houses. They camped that night close enough to Verdane's great lake that they could feel the breeze off its waters, though thick tree trunks hid it from their sight. After sundown loud chirrups sounded from tree to tree, less a song than an incomprehensible conversation.

"Are those birds?" Lester asked of the racket.

"Tree frogs." Dew was reclining against one tree trunk with his hat down over his eyes. "Woods are full of 'em. The prettier they are the more deadly they are- you can really add some punch to your arrows that way."

Faval showed interest at this, and Lester was about to let Dew (and Faval) know that poisoned arrows were something they firmly associated with The Enemy. But Dew rolled out of his casual pose with a bark of "Get down!" and Lester hit the dirt just as some kind of projectile came crashing through the clearing. As Lester tasted flecks of earth on his lips he realized his crossbow and quiver were in his tent at the other end of the clearing. He was useless. All he could do was listen to the others arm themselves and pray that he wasn't a target for whoever and whatever was attacking them.

A shout from Faval caused Lester to raise his head.

"Hey, you see what this is? This bow was blessed by the God Ulir and it _doesn't miss_. And it won't miss you, no matter how thick you think your filthy hide is."

It made a hell of a sight, Lester thought- Faval, illuminated by the bow's golden glow. His eyes, too, seemed filled with light... from the inside, like sparks of blue fire were coming to their surface.

"Now, you put down your axe and anything else you've got, and you get out of here and don't come back. Otherwise, my finger might slip."

Maybe it was the sight of the Yewfelle, or maybe it was the tone of voice Faval used, but the brigand actually laid down his axe, the smaller hand axe he'd thrown at them, and his purse, then scuttled backward through the forest. And did not, in fact, return, though for the rest of the evening Lester had his eyes alert and his bow at hand, ready for the brigand and any of the brigand's friends.

"Nice stuff, man. Good steel on this one," Faval said as he ran a finger along the axe's edge. "Had a couple thousand in gold on him, too."

"Are we thieves now? Where'd you get that vein of stone-cold crazy from?" Lester wasn't going to forget the weird light in Faval's eyes anytime soon... unfortunately.

"Huh? Look, I'm an honorable thief. It's in my blood." Faval's smile cooled into a smirk.

"Briggid's boy," Dew said again to himself, and for once the highwayman sounded genuinely thoughtful.

"I'd like to see you lecture Patty on keeping to the path of virtue now," Lester continued. In between the poison arrows and shaking down the brigand he was none too pleased with his cousin.

"So little Patty became a thief, did she?" This time Dew almost sounded droll.

"Only from necessity," Lester said quickly, as a defensive feeling regarding his family's honor rose in his breast.

"'Necessity' is one of those fun words that means different things to different people," said Dew.

Faval was still busy counting the gold.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

A/N: The "bash brothers" are my baseball-themed homage to hapless earlygame FE4 miniboss DiMaggio. The crappiest orphanage in Conote is inspired by the one in FE12 that turned out brainwashed child assassins.


	3. Chapter 3

**Among Thieves**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Same warnings apply as before.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

Taking Marfa turned out to be what Faval termed "a cakewalk." They happened upon the thug known as Canseco when he was out patrolling the woods around Marfa. Dew pointed him out, Lester distracted him with a well-placed shot, and Faval subdued him with the threat of the Yewfelle. Once captured, Canseco proved willing to do just about anything to stay alive; selling out McGwire and confiding the secrets for how to crack Marfa's defenses wasn't the half of it.

"Don't bother keeping him alive," Dew said after Canseco's promises turned to whining. "He's not worth the cost of his own feed."

"Well, we said we weren't going to kill him, so we can't go back on that now," said Lester. "We have to show the people of Verdane that Emperor Seliph's men keep their promises."

"Scum like Canseco don't represent anyone but himself. Nobody's going to think worse of you for gutting him and nobody'll think better of you for saving him," Dew cautioned.

Scum or not, he was useful enough to the Jungbys in the short term. Canseco's tips allowed them to sneak into the city walls. Faval shot an unsuspecting McGwire, Lester threw Canseco in the dungeon, and Marfa was theirs.

"These guys are nothing compared with what we've been used to," Faval said, as he settled into the throne-like chair of green velvet and gilt vacated by Canseco.

Dew didn't have any praise to offer the cousins, and his advice in how to handle the motley garrison and surrounding villages sounded rather like criticism. He did offer them something of a reward, though- information about their parents, freely given over the feast of curried fish and exotic fruit custard that they enjoyed on the night of their victory.

"Okay. So we were in Phinora in '61 when everything started coming apart," Dew said without preamble. "Sigurd's father'd already been murdered, and in Phinora we get word that his sister and brother-in-law got whacked by Thracian mercenaries. Even worse, the mercenaries killed their little girl."

"Altena," Lester supplied.

"Yeah, I guess. I don't remember."

"No, I mean, we know her. She wasn't dead."

"She turned into one _fine _lady," Faval put in.

"Okay," said Dew, and the hooded, almost reptilian gaze he gave Faval said that the fate of Altena didn't really concern him one way or another. "Anyway, we heard that Ethlyn and Quan and their little girl all got killed. Your mum Aideen pretty well fell apart then. You gotta understand that Ethlyn was her best friend- they went way back- she blamed herself for getting Ethlyn involved in Sigurd's whole campaign in the first place. So Aideen just really lost it there in Phinora. She was expecting a kid-"

"That would be my sister Lana," Lester interrupted.

"Expecting a kid, and so Claude told her to stay put and rest up while we all kept going south. Then once Aideen was on her feet again Sir Midayle was supposed to escort her up to Isaach where little Prince Shanan was hiding out with Sigurd's son and some other kids. And that was the last I saw of fair Lady Aideen. Since you're here, that part of the plan actually went off."

"Yes. Mother and Sir Midayle made it safely to Isaach with me and Lana." In the context of Dew's account of disaster, simply being alive seemed like an accomplishment to Lester.

"Yeah, I know. We already talked about that." Dew wasn't impressed by mere survival. "It wasn't just Aideen, though. I mean, murder was pretty much normal business by that point, but killing a little kid in cold blood just... that changed things. Any man with a wife and little ones decided to, uh, reconsider his position. They all started making secret arrangements to get the women and kids somewhere else. Lewyn and Azel sent their families back up to Silesse. Beowulf and Raquesis had a whole big scene over whether or not she was going to stick with him or not. Things had been dicey with them for months, but she was making a big show of being a good little wife and finally he told her to get her pretty ass to Leonster to take care of the baby Quan and Ethlyn left behind. There was more to that, too, but anyway Raquesis left."

"Oh yeah, she made it to Leonster," Faval said, and his tone of voice made it obvious that there was a great deal more unsaid.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Dew as his eyes flickered from one cousin to the other.

"Long story," said Lester, in hopes Dew would simply get on with the tale.

"She's alive?"

"Eh," said Faval, in the same moment that Lester said "Probably not."

"That's too bad." This time there was something less reptilian about Dew's narrow-eyed stare. "You want to talk about fine ladies, well... she was pretty special."

Faval muttered something to himself as Dew continued his account of the army's slow demise.

"Anyway, by the time we were closing in on Behalla we were a shadow of what we'd been. Low on healers, low on tome users, strapped for recon. Low on sense, maybe. Ayra stuck around. She'd already handed off her twins to Shanan and if things turned bad she planned to die fighting. Sigurd and Holyn both tried to change her mind. No deal. Sylvia and her kid were hanging on because her man was one of Sigurd's personal knights and he wasn't going anywhere. And your mum was in it because she had her holy bow and a duchy to claim," Dew said to Faval.

"Yay for Mum?" Faval offered.

"But then one night, as we were getting in close to Behalla, her and me were talking and-" Dew cut himself off then. "Okay, back up. I'd already had a couple of interesting conversations with Jamke about the way things were going."

"Jamke was the last king of Verdane?" asked Lester, though he knew there weren't likely any other characters named "Jamke" kicking around.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Dew replied. "Since you asked, you have to hear me out on Jamke. The Grannvale bunch looked down their noses at him because the royals of Verdane didn't have crusader blood, but let me tell you, he was the absolute best of that entire crew. He was the only one to see through the whole Loptyr crap from the very beginning."

"Mother always spoke very highly of him."

"Did she? That's nice, I guess. Jamke offered to make Aideen his queen, see, but she had other ideas. And then when Briggid turned up I guess he made her the same offer and she told him to get lost, but they ended up being friends. And I was in the thick of that, so..." Dew, lost in the eddies of his own story, interrupted himself to restart the account yet again. "So me and Jamke and Briggid all were talking that night about how bizarre the whole thing was, with Sigurd suddenly being exonerated after his whole family'd been done to death except baby Seliph."

"And Lady Deirdre missing," put in Lester.

"Yeah, that too. Arvis was playing nice with us _now_, but if this guy was willing to string old Reptor along and then murder him, what else did he have up his sleeve? And we all agreed something just didn't smell right. Jamke suggests that either he or I or both of us accompany Briggid up to Isaach to join her sister. But Briggid didn't like it when men told her what she oughta do, and so she plays the card we knew she had in reserve- 'Oh, you know, Finn's gotta be pretty lonely now in Leonster with everyone _dead_, and he'd probably like to see the kids, so see you later.' And there's nothing we can say about that, so Jamke and I see her off and that's it as far as Briggid goes."

Dew let out an exhalation that sounded more irritated than wistful.

"Two days later, Sigurd's fried and Jamke's dead and I'm playing possum covered in someone else's blood and praying for nightfall. And I've already said everything I'm gonna say about that. And _that's_ how you ended up in the second-crappiest orphanage in Conote instead of with your auntie."

"Yeah, Mum never got to where she was going," said Faval, one hand cupped around his chin in an unusually moody pose. "Dunno why, 'cause Conote's past Leonster on any road you're gonna take."

-x-

Lester marveled at the riches the late McGwire had amassed in Marfa's unpromising walls. The bedroom alone had a great carved bed decked out in velvet and egret plumes and large mirrors backed in silver and gilt on the walls.

"Those thrones downstairs weren't a joke. They did live like kings here," Lester said, as he looked at his own reflection for the first time in many weeks. The gold-tinted image showed a symmetrical oval of a face that narrowed to a sharp chin, a strong forehead and dark brows that drew comparisons to a hawk or falcon when his friends were feeling kind.

"_Kid, I don't know what your mum told you.._."

"What are you doing?"

"I look like my mother," Lester said to the Faval in the mirror behind him.

"Okay."

"No, I mean I mostly look like the Jungby side of the family. I have the same narrow face."

"Like dear cousin Scorpio? He looked like somebody held his face in both hands and squeezed." Faval then added, apparently for his own benefit, "I should've done that before I shot him."

"Whereas your face isn't nearly so narrow at the cheekbones and your jawline is different," Lester continued. "Honestly, you look very Thracian except for your hair color."

"Yeah, I guess," Faval said, and he closed one eye to peer up at the corn-colored bangs cascading over his headband.

"I guess I don't see the resemblance to the Neir family in myself."

"Oh, that again." Faval sounded bored with the discussion already. "Yeah, well, I don't think you look anything like Scorpio either. Lucky for you."

"I wish I had any memory of my father..." Lester said as he tugged at a strand of his hair.

"I saw a painting of him in a church," said Faval. "It was terrible."

"I'm sure it wasn't painted by anyone who'd ever seen him, Faval."

"I don't think it was painting by anyone who'd ever seen a human being. It looked to me like a monkey with long yellow hair and a staff."

"That's part of it, though. Father was fair-haired, like all the Bragi line. Mother has blonde hair. How did I end up with this?"

Lester again touched the dark blue hair that he wore brushed back from his brow.

"I dunno," said the unhelpful Faval. "It's not like your sister's blonde either, though. Lana's totally _carrots_."

"Don't let her ever hear you say that. She'll send a fireball at your rear."

"Yeah, I bet she would. But you can't stay looking at the mirror all night, Les. We've got some more soldiers to swear into our service downstairs."

And so Lester put aside his concerns for the moment and they set about establishing Marfa's loyalty to Emperor Seliph- done, in part, by sharing the Bash Brothers' stock of liquor with the garrison.

-x-

Lester rose with the dawn while Faval, holed up in Canesco's quarters, slept off a likely hangover. Lester collected his horse and rode a short distance north to Verdane's great lake. The inland sea was mirror-still, its shores rimmed with pale mussel shells. There were no stones on the beach large enough to skip, so Lester tossed shells into the water for a while. As the colors of daybreak faded to a hazy blue morning, he heard footsteps coming up behind him.

"Can you ever see the central island from here?" He asked it of Dew before the highwayman could get a word in.

"Only as a mirage. The true island's hidden in the mists beyond the horizon, and if anyone lives there they don't come to shore." Dew indicated something far closer to shore. "See that patch of lilies? Azel almost drowned trying to get some flowers for your mother."

"Did he?"

"Yeah. He was stuck like mad on her when we all met up. Lex had to pull him out of the water. Funny thing was, Lex was about the only guy who did keep his head around Aideen. Maybe that's what she liked about him."

Lester felt a slice of pain in his finger as he gripped the shell in his hand too tightly.

"I'd like to ask you to stop making insinuations about my parentage."

"That again." Dew sounded as bored as Faval had the night before. "So, you're Claude's kid. Do you have his staff?"

"Yes."

"Did you bring it?"

"The Valkyrie Staff? Of course not. I left it in the cathedral at Edda." The ancient staff was far too delicate to bring into the wilds of Verdane.

"Ever used it?"

"No."

"Ever _thought_ about using it?"

"Sure, but I can't use it." Lester had never realized, until he spoke those words aloud, how incriminating the admission sounded. "Or any staff. I can't use magic."

"Why not?"

"I never learned to."

"So, Father Claude and Lady Aideen had a kid that never learned magic. Okay. That makes sense." Dew, to his credit, kept deadpan throughout the slew of questions. "Where's your holy mark?"

"My brand hasn't surfaced yet."

"Okay."

Those cool gray eyes were merciless, Lester thought as Dew looked him over before tossing his shoulders in a careless shrug and settling down on the beach to play with a heap of mussel shells. The shells made a tinkling sound like broken ceramic as Dew poured a stream of them through his fingers like a child playing.

_A child thief playing with his gold_, thought Lester. When he left the beach without saying anything more, it felt like some kind of defeat.

"Hair of the dog, Faval?" Lester said as he offered his still-groggy cousin a cup of punch on his return to Marfa.

"Huh? You don't ever drink in the mornings," Faval said as he took the cup in two unsteady hands.

"Some mornings I do, and this is one of them."

"Cheers," Faval said tonelessly. "Gonna teach you to drink like a Thracian yet."

"Great," Lester lied. His sainted father wouldn't have approved, but at this point, who was taking stock of their actions?

**To Be Continued**

* * *

The official art for FE4 is all over the place, but my image of the way the boys look here is based on the "Bonds of Fate" series of the card game, in which Faval looks blandly attractive in a way that vaguely resembles half the male Gen 1 characters (any non-squishy bishonen type*) while Lester does indeed come off as Lex Jr.

The awful "Ecce Mono" art of Claude is inspired by some of the other, less pleasing, OA.

* So, more cutesy and even-featured than Beowulf, less squishy than Azel. Anyone in that range is fair game to be Faval's male parent based on looks alone.

So, if there ever was a reason Briggid and her kids ended up in godforsaken Thracia, I never saw a canon explanation for it. :P


	4. Chapter 4

**Among Thieves**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Warning: All the same as before plus the general tone gets nastier. So there.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

Faval sobered up enough by the mid-afternoon that he started making plans for their next move after conquering Marfa.

"Okay, so we're almost as far away from the Grannvale border as you can get, deep in the middle of enemy territory with one castle and a couple of dozen men. And we bribed some of them to stick around. And to rescue all these supporters of the emperor we need to go plunging into the Spirit Forest." He gnawed at the end of his pencil. "Nah, I don't see any problems coming out of this one."

"_You_ bribed them," Lester corrected. "And we can't call this _enemy_ territory. Verdane isn't at war with Grannvale."

"They're sure as hell not friends," protested Faval. "And I'm not calling them 'neutral,' either. Neutral doesn't mean nothing in a place like this. It's like those parts of Thracia that nobody was really in charge of 'cept the brigand gangs."

"It's entirely too much like that," Lester agreed. "Well, we need to start making some friends before we head into the Spirit Forest. How do you propose we do that?"

"The usual," Faval said, and lowered his head onto both hands. "Save villages, return little lost kids to their mums and grans, rescue kittens out of the wells..."

So began the tedious business of setting up an actual administration in Marfa. They'd been promised one by the fictional "Bishop of Marfa," of course, and having to build all that infrastructure out of next to nothing felt like a burn to the Jungby cousins.

"How are we supposed to set up a proper outpost if nobody here can read?" Lester demanded of the world after one particularly frustrating day.

"People can all read where you come from?" Dew asked with that same hard stare of skepticism they'd gotten entirely too much of as the weeks went by.

"Well, no, but it's at least expected of civil servants. Faval wouldn't stand a chance of getting a government post in Thracia _or_ Grannvale if he didn't have connections," said Lester, harshly but truthfully, for Faval could write no better than the average ten-year-old.

"What's a civil servant?" asked Dew, his eyes comically wide so he looked like a distorted version of the young boy he'd been during Sigurd's era. "Look, I don't think you know how bad things've gotten in the last fifteen years. You're tearing your hair out over who you're gonna get to inspect the mail when anyone can walk into most villages, shoot somebody dead at random and never be caught, much less hanged."

"Yeah, we are going to worry about who looks after the mail, because it does matter. Sure, there's murderers walking around, but most people are going to think nobody's gonna shoot them and they'll care about this." Faval began to tot his points up on his fingers. "Is there food? Is the drinking water gonna kill me? If I send a letter or some presents to someone, is it ever gonna get there? If there's something dead in the road, who cleans it up? If my neighbor's a jackass, who deals with him? Stuff like that. We don't take care of that stuff and the murder rate could be _zero_ and everybody'd still hate us."

Dew, for once, had no quick response to this. After a time, he looked from Faval to Lester and back again.

"Maybe you _are_ the smart one," he said to Faval.

"Hey, I don't disagree with anything Faval said. He just said it faster," Lester replied, and the cousins continued their search for locals who could inspect the mail, regulate butcher shops and bakeries, and verify the purity of various liquors.

"We are having success in presenting Marfa to the people of Verdane as a model imperial city," Lester wrote in his official report to the emperor. "The citizens of Marfa have been pleased by the prosecution of a baker who was cutting his flour and of three butchers who were engaged in concerted action to keep the price of their meat too high."

"Did you put in the part about how they threw that baker into the lake and heaved stones at him until he drowned?" asked Faval.

"No, because that wasn't supposed to happen." Trials and convictions were proceeding according to the continental standard. Punishments, though, had a distinctly local flavor.

Dew gave them no aid in any of this. He _stayed_ at Marfa, but he went in and out the city gates as he pleased like a scrappy tomcat, and he often returned with some fine new jacket or a bauble pinned to his hat.

"He's using our castle as his own base of operations to rob people," Lester said to Faval when the cousins compared notes on their "comrade's" activities.

"Okay. Let's tax him on his, uh, winnings."

"_Faval_."

"We need the money to run this place. If he's getting it, and he's staying here under this roof and eating our food and stuff, he can put some gold in the kitty."

"You grab for the bottom line way too easily for my comfort," said Lester, who was steadily losing the conviction that Faval's days of doing dodgy things for pay were behind them. He decided to let Faval be the one to confront Dew, though, believing that his cousin could talk to Dew on a level the highwayman could relate to.

They intercepted Dew as the highwayman strolled into the inner court of Marfa's castle like it belonged to him. He was jingling coins in his pocket and Lester was pretty sure the gemmed ring on his left hand hadn't been there earlier in the day.

"Right," Faval said. "Whatever racket you've got going outside Marfa looks pretty successful, Dew. Given that we're letting you stay here and all, we'd like you to kick in a reasonable percentage of it for the collective good. Ten percent."

Lester had to work to keep a straight face on hearing Faval put that many large words together in a sentence. Dew looked from one cousin to the other, his eyes as blank as a pair of glass marbles.

"No," he said, and made to keep walking. But Faval had a long reach and he grabbed the smaller man by the collar before Dew could break clear of them; Lester realized it wasn't so much a display of Faval's quick reflexes as that Dew really hadn't expected either of the Grannvalean dukes to _do_ anything to him.

"Look here. I can throw you down in the black hole of this dungeon along with Canseco. I bet he's real lonely and would love to make friends."

"You do that and Canseco's gonna get thrown through the bars one bloody piece at a time," said Dew, and the lack of bravado in his words made it seem entirely too possible. "And don't think you can keep me in irons. Many have tried. I only had to be _let_ out once."

Faval responded by lifting Dew clear off the ground.

"Okay, Les. What do you want me to do with this rat?"

Lester could only sigh.

"Dew, will you give it a rest? I know things didn't go well for Verdane last time Grannvale came in here with an army, but come on. We're not here to loot and we're not here to treat everyone like subhumans. And I think you can see that here in Marfa we are making things better. So instead of holding things from twenty years ago against us personally, can't you just... pitch in?"

"The spawn of sanctimony wants me to pitch in for the common good. How nice," Dew said, unbowed for all that he dangled several inches above the floor.

Lester wished he did know how to use staves right then, as putting Dew out with a Sleep spell would've been deeply gratifying.

"Hey, Faval?" Dew said, in an entirely different tone. A conciliatory tone.

"Yeah?"

"Just so you know, I had a real good time with your mother after your dad left town. A _real_ good time."

"Get out," Faval snarled, but Dew just shrugged- or tried to, given Faval still had him by the collar.

"I was a lot cuter back then and your mom liked 'em young. Both of you'd be too old already as you are."

To Lester's surprise, Faval set Dew gently back on the pavement.

"Okay, _Uncle Dew_. Since you're family, I can't throw you in the pit like I want to. So just run along and think over the good times, because I'm betting knowing my mum had to be the high point of your sorry life."

As Dew walked away, flamboyant hat and all, Faval shouted after him.

"And when I see Mum again, I'll give her your best!"

"Uh... Faval..."

"I _am_ gonna kill that guy one of these days," Faval said through a tight-lipped smile once Dew was out of their sight. "Family be damned."

"I'm sure he was lying."

"I bet he wasn't." Faval flicked at his bangs in one of the few habitual quirks that he shared with his father. "It's like when he talked about Patty. Sometimes he says things that you just _know_ have to be the truth."

"No."

Lester, who'd been raised to have some very definite ideals about courtly love and marital love and various forms of fidelity, didn't want to hear a word of that right now. If his mother's beloved sister had been playing around with the youngest boys in camp in spite of her marriage vows and twin children, then what else had been going on in Lord Sigurd's army?

He didn't really want to know, but he suspected Dew would be rubbing it in his face soon enough.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

A/N: Faval has no problem killing family members. Ask Scorpio.

Also, having lived in Thracia he's familiar with the concept of green NPC that _attack_. :/


End file.
